


the people we could've been

by perennials



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, sads, they are in a city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7510939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I loved you once, too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the people we could've been

**Author's Note:**

> for 4gon on tungle dot com  
> for gon haha  
> prompt: anagapesis

Gon has never been one for apologies.

 

Gon lives life balanced on the flat edge of a silver blade, with determined gaze set only on the horizon of tomorrow and a heart filled with gunpowder and unlit sparklers, ready to blow at a second’s notice. Gon smiles through veils of storm and silence and charges recklessly into death-games like he has a do-over button hidden in some nonexistent shirt pocket; Gon would carve his own funeral casket out of molten lava if it meant someone else would be allowed to live; Gon was ready to throw his life away, until someone pulled him back over the edge and told him to stay.

 

Even after his arms no longer look like gnarled tree branches and Killua starts sleeping at night again, they do not talk about that day, that curt, cold conversation, that midnight-dark shadow spilling into the blood-red horizon. It sussorates in the spaces behind their ears like a fettered promise, suspended threads of gossamer sealed with double-sided tape, pulling them together yet pushing both sides far away.

 

Sometimes Gon wants to reach across the table and touch his fingertips to the corners of Killua’s mouth, ascertain that he is still flesh and blood and fluttering heartbeats, not made of cold, hard plastic. But he can feel the yawning chasm between their small, small selves, and Gon is not good at walking on tightropes, at finding his balance when given no leeway and little mercy, at moving in straight lines.

 

And the look in Killua’s eyes is, more often than not, misty and dreamlike and far, far away.

 

//

 

The next thing he knows they are at the base of the world tree. Killua is saying _see you later_ as if he doesn't think there will be a later; Gon is smiling blankly as he turns and walks away from him (a second time). Above them the moon is falling slowly out of the sky like a very pale, very quiet shooting star.

 

As the distance between them grows with every deceptively light footfall a small voice in the back of Gon’s mind whispers, _you didn't say sorry_.

 

But, but, but— Killua has Alluka now, and Gon is going to go see Ging after so many years, and besides, Killua’s already forgiven him, hasn't he?

 

_Has he?_

 

Of course he has, Killua is _Killua_ , Gon’s safety net, heart-anchor— Killua couldn't have been waiting for an apology. It's impossible. Quit overthinking things, Gon, or else your head will explode and all the icky stuff inside will come out again. Just— keep going, keep moving up, and stop thinking about

 

—Killua.

 

When Gon peeks over the edge of the trodden path he is already long gone.

 

//

 

At twelve they are fiery summers veined with liquid gold, an omnium gamnium of trim metal clippings and soft, welded edges; at fourteen they are declining temperatures, retreating beneath facades and false pretenses, cutting harder corners but still blurry in some places; at sixteen they are satellites orbiting far out of reach of Earth’s searching hands, always within sight but never close enough to touch.

 

Killua sends an email once or twice, sparse words interspersed with bright, luminescent photographs of Alluka and himself as if to insist, _I’m doing fine, just fine_ , despite the lackluster glow of each bone-brittle sentence. They echo hollowly in Gon’s ears like the ghostly murmurs of a distant choir, and though he tries to see _Killua_ in every clinically cut line Gon finds it increasingly hard to conjure up an image of white hair and moon-pale cheeks.

 

On the other side of the world Gon writes back a thousand times in his head, tries a ten thousand permutations of _I’m sorry_ and _will you forgive me_ only to delete every unfinished draft, every half-formed thought. Words have never been his forte, and as he struggles more and more with stacks of alienish, printed text and the too-big specter living in his skin the sense of urgency that has his bones strung together with fishing line fades.

 

In all of those four years Gon never once presses _send_.

 

//

 

They never meet by some weird twist of fate, or some strange coinciding of fortunes— even Lady Luck herself has forgone the boy who speaks too little and the boy who speaks too much for a fairytale with a more hopeful ending— instead Killua keeps going and going and going so Gon sets out on another journey (less fantastical than the last, but no less painful) carrying nothing but one shiny, untarnished Hunter License and a heart as heavy as history.

 

It’s not the hardest thing Gon’s had to do; eyes like kyanite and hair like a wintry blizzard stand out easily in a crowd, and even more so on the trickling-empty platform of a train station, ghostly white fluorescing against the cast-iron darkness surrounding him.

 

The boy with moon-cratered irises is taller now, still lithe and sleek (still ethereal), sharper angles and stronger lines hidden beneath folds of black clothing, shock of unruly hair gathered in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. The sleeveless hoodie and skinny jeans he’s wearing are so reminiscent of a twelve year old in tiger-stripe pants and ripped shirt sleeves that Gon almost laughs, only the child-sound rakes ugly lines up his throat and catches in his teeth like age-old bubblegum, so he lets it dissolve into a sigh.

 

When he steps out of the automated doors and turns around, Gon can’t help the rollercoaster-rush he gets in his head.

 

“Killua,” he murmurs, equal parts disbelief and bone-shattering tenderness. The word is cotton-candy soft on his tongue, doesn’t bleed from his lips like everything else does these days.

 

“Oh. Hey,” Killua says. He stops in his tracks, sculpted statue surrounded by commuters with lowered heads and hunched backs.

 

“Hey,” Gon parrots back, a little too loudly.

 

“You’re,” Killua digs his hands further into the pockets of his jeans, “really here.” Stares at the floor with tell-tale tendrils of ice-blue flickering in his eyes. “That's kinda funny.”

 

Gon edges closer to the faded yellow safety line on the platform. Everyone else has left; no one will tell him to mind the gap now. “What’s kind of funny?”

 

Killua’s eyes twinkle. “I finally stop looking for ghosts, and then one turns up right before my eyes,” he says, quirking his lips faintly.

 

A twinge of unease crawls into the pit of Gon’s stomach at Killua’s words. “I’m—” he starts abruptly, fingertips blue with cold (fear) and shaking, because he doesn’t know what else to say, “I’m sorry.”

 

“I waited for you,” Killua nods his head to the tunnel on his left, where train-tracks veer off and vanish around the bend.

 

In a heat-of-the-moment decision, Gon reaches out, links his fingers together with Killua’s.

 

“I’m sorry.” If he repeats it enough times maybe it _will_ be enough.

 

Killua obliges quietly, unflinching and unmoving in Gon’s grip. He looks like he has the weight of the entire moon-lit sky on his narrow shoulders; he is only sixteen years old and already (still) carrying burdens meant for older (stronger) hearts.

 

He looks past Gon with shuttered window eyes. “I waited for a long, long time.”

 

Gon pauses, then says: “I still love you.”

 

Killua’s cheeks are as white as bone, dusted with snow, and bleached of emotion.

 

“I loved you once, too.” He offers Gon a milk latex gummy moon smile, starlight bending around the soft curve of his mouth.

 

Everything is stretched so thin across Killua’s delicate cheekbones and suddenly Gon wants to press the pads of his fingers to the corners of the ghost-boy’s lips again, because he looks like he is disappearing into the night air even though he is still standing right in front of Gon.

 

He doesn’t.

 

Killua shrugs his hand away. “Y’know, I always thought you’d come look for me. That I’d see you on the sidewalk one afternoon, fishing in the river at the edge of town, trying to catch shooting stars out in the fields.”

 

Gon wants to interject, to cut in, tell Killua _I wanted to find you, wanted to say sorry, did you know that I read every single text and email over and over so many times that I’ve memorized them all by heart_ , but he realizes with a start that in this moment, this bubble of strange, plaintive space, he doesn’t have that right.

 

“But four years is a long time, Gon.”

 

It’s the first time he’s heard his name uttered by Killua in a while. He wishes it could’ve been under different circumstances.

 

“I’m sorry.” _I’ve fucked up, haven’t I? I hurt you, didn’t I?_

 

“We could’ve been something fucking amazing.” Killua’s voice is hard and brittle and distant, and it’s a whisper but Gon thinks it’s a shout. “Where were you when I couldn’t sleep? When Alluka said she wanted to walk on her own two feet? When the sun decided it didn’t want to shine over my head anymore and moved on to someone else?”

 

“It was exhausting.” His smile is sad now, flimsy and crooked and melodious, A sharp minor chords mellowed out across pale thin lips. “And now it’s just— there’s nothing left.”

 

“So I’ll go now, all right? Take care of yourself. Find someone who won’t leave. Who’ll let _you_ leave.” There’s nothing accusatory in his tone but it stings all the same.

 

Gon’s feet are nailed to the floor. _I still miss you so fucking much,_ the bow-string tension in the set of his shoulders betrays. _Don’t go_ , his clenched fists say.

 

“See you later,” Gon’s lips move in cinematic slow-motion to form a quiet, lilting reply.

 

And Killua leaves without another word.

 

Apologies have never really been his style, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> if u don't know what anagapesis means u should look it up.  
> (by which i mean i s2g i didn't mean to time this post with that other fuckin good post-canon killugon bye-bye-LMAO fic someone sent this prompt in about a week ago and i've been working on it since then. don't look at me. i swea.r this is as original as it gets around here.)  
> also idk about the credibility of it as a word but it's from [This List](http://corpsentry.tumblr.com/post/147289265689/send-me-a-word-and-a-characterseriespairing-and) of tungle writing prompts aight. btw if u want to shoot me more prompts and characters hmu anytime  
> as u can see up there my tumblr is @ corpsentry. my twotter is too if u wanna fight me  
> if ya liked the thing leave a kudo or a comment or don't, whatever floats ur boat, flaps ur jack, kicks ur dick
> 
> have a good one


End file.
